The artist group I joined, Grand Valley Artists, is having a postcard sale. Members create 4×6 postcards and donate them for the fundraiser to cover costs for the studio and other expenses. I did these from photos I found online. Permanent marker and acrylic paint. Quite a few artists will be providing cards so it will be interesting to see. There is no theme so I imagine there will be landscapes, abstract, block prints, flowers/still life, etc. If you are near Schuler Books on 28th Street, it’s on the back side of that building. Check the studio hours to make sure it is open.
We didn’t camp in our regular spot on the Pine River. A young couple was camped there. I talked to the guy and offered him $40 if he would pack up and camp elsewhere and he seemed tempted but passed. The regular spot overlooks the river on a high bluff and has lots of room for trailers and tents. It’s first come first serve so that’s fine. No problem. Natch spent Thursday night in another spot, called me, and said it was too small. I drove to the spot and we decided we could make it work, and, turns out it worked well. We set a campfire and later found rocks and small boulders to build a fire pit.
Feral and Jake arrived on Saturday. Feral had a new vehicle, a 94 Ford Ranger with something like 80k miles on it and no rust. He towed Jake’s 1961 Apache Chief tent camper. The two rode together. Natch and I lined up our trailers along one edge of the clearing to make sure there was room for the tent camper. The small clearing/hollow is surrounded by trees that act as a windbreak. We couldn’t see the river but it was an easy walk from camp. Bottom line: This is a great camp option in the future.
Natch brought a grill that fits over a campfire and Saturday night we cooked up a load of morels as appetizers to a trout dinner with beans. I had caught a couple of trout on an upper stretch of the Pine River on Saturday afternoon. As I was heading back downstream to my truck I ran into another fisherman from the Detroit area. He saw my fish and asked what I was using for a lure, and I told him, but he wanted to look at the lure. So he climbed out of the stream and broke through some thorn bushes to get a closer look. I offered up a few alternatives I’ve had good luck with but he was determined to know what exact lure was used for the two fish I was carrying. One was 17 inches, the other 15. I guess seeing is believing.
This was our best year ever for morels. Our go-to spot is a fifteen-minute drive from camp. Natch and I scored about twenty on Friday. Saturday morning we went back with Jake and Feral and picked another 30 or so.
We always remote camp (dispersed camping) on state land with a form you post on a tree for anyone to see, including the Michigan DNR. It’s free to do this but there are rules to follow including what distance you must camp from a trout stream. I had brought along a framed photo of the Phillips Gang for Jake. I hung it up just below the camp tag. I thought he and Feral would get a kick out of seeing it there. The photo shows what appears to be an early 1900s photo of an outlaw gang, which in my mind was like a warning to people to turn around before pulling into our camp. A ridiculous idea if you know the guys I camp with. They are all friendly and laid back. The photo includes Feral, my step-dad Ken Phillips, myself, an old friend, Don, from high school, and Denny, a trout camp regular. If you type “Phillips Gang” in the blog search tool you’ll find a better photo.
Natch brought some antique pellet pistols and rifles and we spent one afternoon plinking tin cans around camp. Natch is a serious collector of rare rifles from the early twentieth century. He also brought some hand-built sling-shot rifles using rubber slings meant for slingshots. Very creative guns. They looked dangerous, were difficult to load, but would launch small stones and round shot like a catapult. I give Natch a lot of credit. Making some sort of gun was a camp challenge and he always rises to the occasion.
I was hoping we would have a jam session so I brought my kit-built telecaster with an amp along with a second amp with a microphone for vocals. I asked Natch to bring his bongos. Natch and Feral started drinking White Russians which are made with vodka, coffee liquor, and cream. I took a sip of Natch’s and realized it was super heavy on the vodka so I stuck with NA Coronas with lime. After an hour, Natch and Feral talked about having a jam session. Feral, who also goes by the name Rock Bottom, was our lead vocalist. I jammed out a variety of songs, sometimes with distortion, and Natch played bongos with abandon, somehow turning it into a full set of drums. Jake was a little shy about joining in or maybe the cacophony and the occasional off-key blend was enough to convince him there was no place for a real musician in the mix. We jammed for a couple of hours. It was after midnight before I pulled the plug.
We had cold nights and cool days. Monday the sun came out and suddenly we were scrambling for shade. This may sound like BS, but Feral needed to go into the woods for you know what, found a spot, and thought: this looks like the same kind of area I found mushrooms yesterday. He looked down and saw one. Then scanned the ground and found four more. Later, he and Jake went back there and found another twenty. So there you go. First weekend in May start looking for morels in Lake County, Michigan.
Natch found the first mushroom. That’s me, Luther, with my walking stick. We didn’t do as much fishing as usual – mainly because our regular spot (that was taken) has good fishing right over the hill. Also, the river was flooded when we arrived. By Sunday it was coffee-colored and wadable. Natch did a stretch and caught five keepers which he released. Jake and Feral did a stretch together and brought back two to take home. I did another stretch and caught one and missed a few others. So the fishing was good. We talked about tossing worms into a big hole below 6-Mile Bridge on Monday night but we were still in recovery mode after the late-night Sunday jam session. We packed up on Tuesday morning and vowed to figure out some more trips this summer.
I first met Rock Bottom at a remote camping spot along the Pine River. He was wailing on a Gibson Les Paul through a Fender Amp Can. The distortion button was pressed and ragged notes drifted in a wide arc across the delta disturbing the blackbirds and waking the owls. I was looking for fishing access to the river and pulled into his camp by chance. He didn’t look up when I pulled in. He kept sliding a chunk of carriage bolt up the neck and chording some open strings. Open D tuning if I recall. I stood next to him for a while looking over the embankment. I could see the river sparkling through the scrub trees out in the distance.
There was an extra camp chair but I didn’t sit down. No Invite. Finally, I reached into my pocket and dropped a dime bag at his feet. He hit that low D string and dragged it down from the tenth fret. “No pipe,” I said. “I do have Zig Zags.” He twisted the fingers on his chording hand to indicate start rolling. Then he scaled up to a C note and bent it up a note before dropping down to some open chord stuff.
We passed the dube back and forth a couple times, still no conversation. After a good toke he pointed at the tent. Inside there was a chipboard guitar case that was falling apart. “Top Shelf” was stenciled in white on top. Welcome stickers from cities held the case together like duct tape. The guitar had nice action and was well-worn across the fretboard. An old Epiphone. Not bad tone. I sat down in the empty chair and I knew I was up. Play something or go away.
He had some killer blues chops but that weren’t my thing. As far as songs I didn’t know crap in the key of D. I thought something dark was appropriate so I started chording Down by the River by Neil Young. He slapped on a capo and suddenly there was meaning to the song. When I belted out the chorus he played some harmony notes that could have been channeling a black woman wailing in church. Goosebumps went up my spine. If you know anything about Neil Young on electric, there are no rules. Sometimes there’s a fragment that takes you home, sometimes you scratch your head, sometimes you think he’s a genius. This wasn’t Neil Young’s rendition, this was Rock Bottom’s. He went up and down the neck like suckers in a river. Knew just where to rest.
We finished off the song and did some A-minor Bob Dylan stuff. He found the pocket right away and we ended up jamming for an hour or so. His girlfriend, Top Shelf, her stage name, showed up and I had the feeling it was time to leave. She didn’t say anything but there was something in her look. We polished off the dube, I put her guitar away, and drove off to another spot on the river. I never did fish. After that it seemed like fishing just wasn’t going to cut it.
Quite some time ago I loaded free recording software on my desktop computer and put together this parody of Ghost Riders for my fishing buddies. Feral Tweed added some electric mandolin. Sorry about the bass guitar, not really my thing. The photo is from a night jam with Denny Buttermore from the Down Yonder band. Feral is standing over the fire. I am playing my Craigslist Maple Ventura, a lawsuit guitar from the seventies, if you follow. Photo by Natch who usually adds some percussion. This was up at Pickerel Lake near Vanderbilt , MI. Dan and Jake, both sitting, are both very good guitarists but some nights you just like to stare at a good campfire.
It’s getting harder to gather people for what I have been calling trout camp so if I change the name maybe that will help. Most of us, excluding Natch, have pretty open schedules due to retirement, self-employment, and less responsibility. Seems like it would be easy to get folks together for a long weekend of trout fishing. As the person who organizes these things, it is a bit of a sting when things go south. In all fairness, the switch to the third weekend of September was unusual with two guys just unable to work it out and another caught in a time crunch.
Natch on the brutal walk out of Cornwall
Natch and I met up at Pickerel Lake for the weekend and did some serious trout fishing. The streams were low and clear and the days were hot so we tried to get out early morning. I cooked up an early breakfast in the Scamp trailer and we hit our favorite stretches like Cornwall Flats and Tin Bridge on the Pigeon, and the Valley on the Sturgeon. We did the best in the Valley.
I had just finished the stretch above the horse bridge and set a 15-inch male brown on the railing when I saw Natch walking up from downstream. I could see he had one hand behind his back so I was prepared when he swung around an 18-inch brown. To be clear, it was too early for the fall run of big browns on the Sturgeon but somehow Natch managed to find a very nice trout. He has a habit of doing that.
We did some exploring. We saw elk and deer and investigated a couple more pot-hole lakes that are supposed to hold trout. It is artificial lures only but maybe some fake leaf worms / Berkley power bait, might be workable. Could make a fun afternoon.
A couple months back Jake suggested an “art instrument” challenge. I spent some time thinking about what to do for that and built an electric guitar kit, a $79.00 Leo Jaymz Telecaster. I was inspired after finding a raw pine telecaster body locally that had knots in it. It reminded me of the “possibles” box (see earlier post on that). I painted up the pine body to match the artwork on the box. It was a tricky but fun build and after finishing it I thought it would be cool to plug it into the possibles box so I added a guitar plug to the box that’s connected to a battery-powered amp inside.
I played “Things Have Changed” by Bob Dylan and a few other oldies like “Uncle Charlie” off my Without a Hitch CD. I waited until the campground cleared out on Sunday afternoon. I think there’s a rule about no amplifiers in state forest campgrounds. And not everyone shares my strange taste in music.
Natch was apologetic about not having art instrument ready. No problem. He is fully employed and busier than the rest of us combined. I have no idea if Jake or Feral managed to get something going but no matter, it’s fun playing something I have invested time and energy into. I wasn’t even sure I would like a telecaster! So far I like how easy it is to bend notes on the almost flat neck.
We started a new tradition called October Camp which is a short weekend at the height of the fall color change. I’m not sure about any of the timing but tenting in October has a nice appeal. It’s the time of year when we guys with a red-green color problem get a glimpse of what we miss the rest of the year: spectacular colors. Reds and oranges popping like magic. Driving down a two-track a couple years back it seemed like I was driving through a forest fire minus the smoke and heat. If we remote camp, which is probable, I know there are some interesting vintage air rifles and plinking coming up also. I hope to get some photos and a good story for that.
With summer screaming by I was happy to see a text from Natch proposing a weekend camp at “burnt clutch,” our go-to spot for remote camping in the Pigeon River State Game Area. No trailers this time, just tents. A fast trip to get in some trout fishing. I pulled in around noon Friday and within two hours both Natch and Feral showed up. We blew through the balance of Friday somehow just talking, drinking beer, a short walk to the Cornwall access site to the Pigeon, a drive to Pickerel Lake, and a good campfire. Natch brought a tent you toss in the air and it sets itself up. We had a stray shower on Saturday morning and unfortunately, the waterproofing did not match the clever set-up technology so he ended up with a wet sleeping bag. Look for a cheap tent on marketplace in the Rockford area 🙂
We fished a stretch of the Pigeon that’s upstream of Tin Bridge. We expected lots of gravel bottom and shallow water and didn’t know what to expect for good bends or deep holes. We hadn’t fished the stretch before. It wasn’t long before we came to the beaver dam we discovered last fall (and I reported to the DNR). The elevation drop is just high enough to keep some migrating/spawning browns and rainbows from getting upstream (my opinion). The DNR guy I spoke with said he would contact some trappers about the beavers because if they open the dam the beavers would just block it up again. Doesn’t look like much has changed in the last ten months. The Pigeon River needs some help after the Song of the Morning fiasco.
Natch broke the camp record for the smallest trout. He thought he had a leaf caught on his lure. We didn’t check the length with a tape or the girth with a micrometer but there was no question about who now holds the record. Shortly after, I caught a trout closer to the old record. It was a beautiful morning to get out fishing, a little overcast, not too hot. I can’t remember the last time the three of us fished together but it was nice, lots of jokes, trading off the lead, getting our casting accuracy down.
Back at camp we had some sandwiches and did some target shooting with our pellet guns. Feral and I each brought a favorite pistol and we took turns trying out some vintage rifles Natch found at online auctions. Amazing 100-year-old technology. Both BB and pellet guns. There were some very creative engineers back then exploring ways to compress air and launch projectiles.
Feral with a Crossman Model 101, an early variant from the 1920’s
I didn’t bring a guitar but brought my mandolin figuring I would try a couple songs, and Feral, with more experience on a mandolin, would play a few songs too. That turned into one of the best jams we ever had. Natch provided rhythm on bongos and a tambourine. I did some Dylan songs and tried a bluegrass song I wrote a few years ago about being kind to your waitress. The highlights though were Pink Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine and Feral playing Down Under by Men at Work. The mandolin, an A-body style Eastman, really sounded good in the wild outdoors. Eastman makes guitars and mandolins. I’d like to play one of their guitars. May have to visit Elderly Instruments in Lansing for that.
We broke camp on Sunday morning and made plans for our fall trout camp in September. We have a couple challenges coming up for that. One is an “art instrument” challenge meaning whatever that means to each of us. Something to make music. I may do a video if we get some cool things happening. Another challenge is building an air pistol but I’m afraid I haven’t started on that or even know what is possible with my garage tools. A machine shop would be helpful. The other challenge mentioned early last spring is building a camp chair and that is another one I’ll need to make excuses for. After the possible box challenge, see earlier post, we are all game to get creative but time has a way of running out with life’s interruptions. No matter who brings what to trout camp next month, should be interesting.
I don’t know how Natch does it. Manager at a large firm. Teenage boys. Four properties to keep up. Air gun collector and re-builder. And he still finds time to steal away to a trout stream. He made the most of the holiday weekend by driving up to the Sturgeon River near Vanderbilt and fishing a stretch in “The Valley.” The water was high and clear and the sun was out. Not such great conditions for fishing. He caught a couple small ones and that could be expected, but coaxing a big one out from under the bank is another matter.
He said if I use the photos in a post go ahead and get creative with the writing so here goes: “When Natch saw how big the fish was he lost his nerve and handed me the pole. I was able to unsnap the net from his lanyard before he ran off, but must admit, I had a real battle to drag this in. His five-foot spinning rod and four pound test line required the kind of finesse you can only get from a half-century of catching lunker brown trout… so I was equipped mentally, even though my body has taken a beating from years of sitting at a desk job.”
Memorial Day was my only shot at trout fishing this week. I drove up to my favorite creek and the banks were overgrown like a tropical jungle. I found wader boot tracks and brush broken alongside the creek but with so many logs and trees down it was a miracle I didn’t punch holes in my waders. I could get in for small stretches but most of my casting was from the bank lobbing a Rapala between logs. I ran into a bait fisherman who said he had caught 4 or 5 six-inch browns and one decent one, about sixteen, that he let go. I caught a couple twelve-inchers and released them, regrettably. I should have kept those for dinner.
Busting through the jungle to get back out to the road was bad, but could have been worse. The temp was only about 60 degrees which must have freaked out the mosquitoes – I didn’t see one. And no ticks. I had sprayed a camo shirt with permethrin so I’m sure that helped.
I took my wife trout fishing on this creek right after we married. Her wader boots got stuck in some muck and mosquitoes carried her off. I never saw her on a trout stream after that. I’m still weighing the pros and cons. 🙂
I got a call from Natch on Wednesday afternoon saying he couldn’t take it any longer. He was going to cut out of work early and head up to our remote spot on the Pine River. Would I be interested in heading up tonight (rather than in the morning)? I asked if he was serious, always a concern, and he said yes. Fortunately, I had just returned from my Meijer trip for groceries so nothing was stopping me. We met at trout camp around 7:00 pm.
We had an art challenge this spring – make a smoking pipe or a walking stick. Natch came through again with a killer pipe reminiscent of North American Indian tribes, and a polished walking stick/cane with a knob handle that was face-like. I combined a walking stick and a pipe with the idea it would resemble half bone and half wood. At the very top a section turns sideways to access the bowl. When closed it traps the mixture so it won’t fall out.
Luther’s walking stick /pipe
While mushroom hunting Jake came across a vintage lawn chair with most of the webbing gone – but has nice metalwork. I don’t know about having a camp chair challenge, we talked about it, but Jake rebuilding that chair with new webbing sounds interesting. Note how the legs taper down to a quarter inch. Impressive metal forming – not sure how they accomplished that.
Natch has been on a mission to buy some vintage air pistols and he found some real classics. A couple Diana model 5s, a Webly Tempest and a Hurricane, a model 137 Benjamin Franklin (like mine), various CO2 pistols and everyone’s favorite: a pre-war Hubertus with an art deco design and a simple mechanical action that has inspired Feral and Jake to consider building one in their machine shops. (another T.C. challenge?)
Natch with his Chronograph
Feral had his Hy-Score and a vintage Benjamin Franklin BB rifle I hadn’t seen before. That was another group favorite. It’s a multi-pump with a rod that pulls out below the barrel. The finish is worn down to brass in places. Very nice. Jake had his pre-war Webly Mark 1, and I had the rebuilt Diana model 6 (see earlier post) along with a vintage Gamo Falcon from the 70s. Natch had a chronograph so we could check pellet speeds. We set beer cans on stumps turned them into colanders.
Benjamin Franklin BB GunJake with his Webly and Feral with the Hubertus
I brought my maple-bodied Ventura camp guitar and also a new/used Cajon box drum I found on marketplace. I thought it might add some steady bass rhythm. Feral played that. I am thinking about doing some Dune movie illustrations on the Cajon – call it the Dune thumper.
I did a few songs, mostly old Cat Stevens from his Tea for the Tillerman album. Feral played Hold On by Tom Waits and vowed to start looking for another acoustic guitar. Guitars, some classic, seem to go in and out of his life with regularity. I was hoping Natch would pick up on the cajon but I guess he wanted to give Feral some room to experiment.
Did we fish? The Pine River was running high and stained which is just what you hope for when the weather is sunny and clear and/or partly cloudy. It rained twice, at night, and the camp dried out quick both times. Wading was tricky so a lot of casting from the bank except where you knew the stream was shallow. No one caught anything over fifteen inches but everyone caught and saw nice fish. We had our customary trout dinner with baked beans on Saturday night.
Feral casting / Jakes brown trout
One morning, on the way to a fishing spot, I had an owl swoop in front of my car and land in a nearby tree. I pointed my phone camera out the windshield and caught that one. Later one swooped through camp right next to me and landed on tree over the ridge in camp. Natch took a photo but it’s hard to see in the branches. The strange thing was it happened when Natch and I were commenting on the songbirds making such a loud din it seemed unnatural.
Morning Owl
The second night it rained, on Saturday night, we didn’t notice anything different about the stream on Sunday but by Monday the stream turned muddy. Feral and Jake had to pack up and go but Natch and I fished an upper stretch of the Pine hoping the mud had cleared away upstream. It didn’t, but we managed to get in the stream and see fish, though we went fishless. The sun was out and the water was like chocolate milk. We could see our Rapalas flash below the surface.
Morel mushrooms were a bust. We can usually get enough for a skillet snack from our go-to place but two trips made it clear we were too late. That was confirmed at the Bristol Store. On the plus side, Natch and I tried out our walking sticks and I have to say: I will always be using one from here on out. It was nice for crossing over logs and just leaning against while scanning the ground for mushrooms. I didn’t light the hidden bowl but maybe I’ll try that sometime. I’m on a no-beer, no-smoking diet until I can get a mild heart problem figured out. I drank Corona NAs with limes which was almost enough to convince me I was knocking down real beer. Natch took a couple photos of a Blue Racer snake which seems to be getting more and more rare. They are not poisonous but have a painful bite so best to leave them alone.
Natch and I packed up Tuesday morning. I had a mishap on the way home. I took 131 south and took the Lansing exit north of GR and as I was rounding the ramp to I96 a tire blew out on the Scamp trailer. There was nowhere to go and very little room. I pulled onto the shoulder and changed the tire but my spare just didn’t have enough air. Lesson learned – don’t just feel the tire through the cover and guess it’s okay – pull the cover and check the actual pressure. I had to leave the Scamp on the expressway, run to the next exit and fill the tire, go back past the camper and turn around, hook up the trailer, and put on the spare. It was nerve-racking. Every time a big semi went past the trailer it would shake and I was afraid it would blow right off the jack. Online I found a new set of radials with a D load rating (more plys) and a speed rating of 81mph. And new rims. Even though I went no more than a hundred yards the rim was wrecked.
We went to breakfast in Tustin one morning and stopped at an antique shop on Mainstreet. I heard Jake laughing and he pointed to this. I was tempted to buy it out of curiosity. Was the writing as funny as the illustration?
I never listen to my best advice. At a gun auction last Friday I started bidding on an air pistol. My brain said don’t bid over 75 dollars on a pistol that may or not work. There was no way to test the various air pistols before buying. They had a couple Webly Tempests, a variety of CO2 pistols including a couple modern ones, and a few BB guns. I bid on a Webly and got out early enough that Natch jumped in and got it for $140.
The pistol that really caught my eye was an RSW Model 6, made in Germany. Looked to be in great shape. A big gun. Probably 16 inches long. It has two pistons that expand 180 degrees from each other to exhaust air, with this result – it has no recoil. Ahead of it’s time. This one was made in 1980.
I bid, I won, I got it home, cocked it, put in a pellet, pulled the trigger, and the pellet got stuck in the barrel. The seals were toast. I paid about what Natch paid for his Webly.
This is interesting. The general consensus online is Model 6’s are expensive to have repaired and the project is so daunting that most people stick them in a drawer and forget about them.
So that is the pistol, in pieces, on the tabletop in the main photo. I stripped it down far enough to get the pistons out. The rear one looked good, the seal on the front piston had disintegrated. New seals are on their way from Air Rifle Headquarters (.com). I found some pretty good instructions online but the real test is reassembly. How to get the pistons, springs, and pinion gears back into the cylinder. I’ll post a photo after I get it back together and have it working.
The painting was done for the fichigan “white chair” art challenge back in 2020.
Natch bought two pistols and they both worked.
So it’s back together. A very tricky project adding new seals. I fired it a few times and it shoots but I have no way of knowing how many feet per second. Natch bought a chronograph and will bring it to trout camp in early May. If it is shooting in the 350 range I will be very happy. If it is 200 fps I will need to rethink some of my decisions during the rebuild. I had to take a little off the leading edge of the front piston seal to get it in the cylinder. The reassembly of the springs went well with the caveat that the rear piston may engage the rear cap before the front piston (which propels the pellet) smacks the front wall of the cylinder. I know that may not make sense but it is key to the recoilless feature of the gun. That said, I don’t feel recoil… so I may be okay. Here is a cut-away screen capture from a YouTube video available online if you search for “How it works Diana Model 6 Giss.” You can see how the front piston and seal drive air to the barrel. The rear piston is basically a dummy piston to make the gun recoilless.
Spring trout camp coming soon. Lots of vintage pistols, a trout stream that produces nice size browns, and a special art challenge that I better get started on.
Quick update: Taking a little off the front edge of the piston seal was a problem – It only shot 225 fps (feet per second) which is not good. I ordered more seals and installed them without modification. Now the pistol is shooting 275 fps, still not good. I expect the seals to break in but this pistol should be shooting 100 fps faster. I used Super Lube silicone oil, 5000 cSt, on the seals and piston body and suspect a lower viscosity oil like Pellgun oil may have worked better. I’ll run a couple hundred pellets through it and re-check with a chronograph. Fingers crossed.
Fichigan 